---
A long silence answered. Then came the voice, more softer now, distant but clear.
"Your caution honors you. But know this, potential unclaimed is potential lost. The sea will wait… but not forever."
The waves around the basalt promontory quieted as though the entire sea had become one vast lung, inhaling, waiting to see if the lone figure on the ridge would dare exhale. Kai's white silver hair floats in the late afternoon wind, salt stratifying in faint rock crystals across the black plates of his traveling armor. It hasn't been long since he'd walked here to scout an overland route; now the horizon itself was bargaining for his future.
Below, the tide whispered like parchment turned by invisible hands. Then the unseen voice spoke again, the voice was resonant enough to vibrate marrow yet soft enough to graze the ear like a lullaby:
